Originally Posted by holdingontoit
Separate accounts. My paycheck goes into my account. Then her allowance gets transferred from mine into hers. So she cannot pull more out of my account than we have agreed.

Technically we still have a joint checking account, but I can remove her at any time as I am the primary and she is only an authorized user.

I've tried the allowance model on multiple occasions, cash, debit cards, checks, etc. None of it has worked long term as DW refuses to track her spending and then gets upset when her actions and lack of planning result in overdraws or not having enough cash for whatever she wants to do. This entire concept is completely foreign to me as I always know exactly how much money I have everywhere and I track everything closely, but I do recognize that everyone is different. Still, I struggle not to DJ DW in this area because a part of me feels she is purposefully being clueless when it comes to money and then always expects me to resolve our financial problems.

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As for credit cards, you cannot stop her from opening them. But when I was most desperate, I got her to agree to put a fraud alert on her credit file. That means the credit reporting companies send a letter every time she opens a new account. And I had her list my office as the place where the letters go. So while I cannot stop her from opening new accounts, I can see them fairly quickly. Since the fraud alert got posted, I don't think she has opened any new accounts. Gee, I guess opening new accounts isn't so much fun when you have to pay the balances back yourself!

Fraud alert, didn't know that was an option, I'll look into it.

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Oh, and I keep my checkbook in the credenza in my office. So no more stealing checks and forging my name to pay off credit cards.

The checkbook stays at the office for me as well. That and I switched my primary checking to ING Direct's Electronic Orange so I only keep a traditional check writing account at our old bank for deposit purposes for miscellaneous checks, all of my autodeposits go into the ING account which only has website based access for me (she has read only access to the account).

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So a combination of separate accounts, fraud alert, and keeping all papers in my office has worked fairly well to cut down the overspending. Every so often she still finds a way to do an end run. A couple of times she asked to borrow my card so she could buy something online for one of our kids. She had the web site save the credit card information, so she could go back online later and order more stuff. I had to sit her down and delete the information from the web sites.

Same thing happens to me quite often. She gets a credit card number and enters it into amazon.com and spends money without any POJA.

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For a while, I slept with my wallet in a locked drawer. For a while I slept with it under my pillow. But lately it has been safe for me to put it on my dresser at night. She doesn't get up in the middle of the night and use the cards online. At least not so far as I can tell, and I do make sure to review carefully every monthly statement to make sure there are no unexpected charges.

Never gone that draconian and I hope not to have to, I should know more after this weekend.

God Bless,

HitchHiker

All I want to do is learn to think like God thinks. , I want to know Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details. , When the solution is simple, God is answering. - Albert Einstein

INTJ married to an ENFJ